Mario Kart Anti Gravity Racer from Jakks Pacific

The Mario Kart Anti Gravity Racer was one toy we could not wait to review. Of course the boys are huge Mario fans and play Mario Kart on their Wii U all the time, so the idea of racing with Mario in real life has made this one of the most requested toys in our house. The first thing we noticed about this toy is just how huge it is – so much bigger at over 15″, this is not a tiny RC car. Getting ready to play was simple and we were able to install the batteries quickly – the car takes 6 C batteries and we definitely recommend rechargeable batteries because once you get Mario going the kids are not going to want to put this toy down.

Let’s talk about the car itself first – The car, complete with Mario figure in the drivers seat, feels really well built. It has a nice weight and great, bright colors. The kids went crazy the second they saw it because the car looks like it was driven straight out of the video game and on to our living room floor!

The Mario Kart Anti Gravity Racer is a 2.Ghz RC car with a range of 100 feet, so indoors or outdoors you have plenty of room for racing and drifting. The remote is fairly large, which we found to be really nice for kids as they have a good amount of surface area to hold on to. On the remote itself you will find an on/off switch and two toggle switches – one for forward/backward movement and one for spinning. The very simple design is really great for kids just learning to drive RC cars as the controls are really straightforward and easy to figure out. The car is very responsive to the controls and just a whole lot of fun to drive.

At the top of the remote there are two blue buttons, and this is where the real fun comes in, because those buttons switch between driving mode and hover mode. It’s really simple to do, with just the push of a button the wheels will slide up and the car appears to hover over the floor surface. This feature works really well for us and the wheels glide smoothly up and down.

In driving mode the car goes forward, backward and spins. In anti gravity mode it gets more of a side to side motion with is really cool because the car looks like it is just gliding over the floor. You can switch modes while driving, and with a little practice you’ll be able to switch into anti-gravity mode and glide around turns and corners just like in the game, which was our favorite thing to master with this toy!

While the Mario Kart Anti Gravity Racer is listed ages 8+, our five year old was able to master the controls fairly quickly. Older kids will definitely have a lot of fun with this toy though, because the responsive controls and hover ability make it really easy to perform stunts and tricks once you get the hang of it.

The Mario Kart Anti Gravity Racer works really well on wood floors, and even outdoors on grass or concrete. It drives well on carpet too, but we had a little difficulty with switching modes and driving in anti gravity mode on the carpet, so your experience may vary depending on the type of carpet you have in your home.

Overall, this toy was probably one of the biggest hits on our house this year. Before even getting it out of the box the kids were in awe of the size and likeness to the actual video game, and once out of the box our entire family had fun racing it around. At around $99.00 this toy definitely packs an impressive punch and makes the perfect gift to really blow away any Nintendo or Mario fan.